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Pantos Project Update: Ninth TAST Technical White Paper

Pantos
Pantos
Published in
4 min readMay 14, 2020

In the ninth TAST Technical White Paper, we further develop our protocol presented in White Paper 8 towards the requirements outlined in White Paper 5. As mentioned in our last update from February 2020, our protocol shows that most requirements for cross-blockchain token transfers can be fulfilled, plus we achieved a significant cost reduction of up to 92% over traditional blockchain relays. Now, we evaluate the new protocols on the Ethereum test networks Rinkeby and Ropsten.

Key facts of White Paper IX:

  • Based on the progress we made with recent White Papers, we now present extensions for a cross-blockchain token transfer protocol to ensure that tokens in transit are eventually recreated on the destination blockchain.
  • The goal is to provide transfer confirmations on both blockchains involved in the transfer in a fully decentralized manner.
  • We evaluate the proposed protocol extensions in terms of transfer cost and duration by transferring ERC20 tokens from Rinkeby to Ropsten.
  • In future work, the approach will be extended to other blockchain platforms as well. Finally, we will explore blockchain interoperability solutions beyond cross-blockchain token transfers.
  • Download fact sheet PDFs in English, German and French.

Recapping the recent progress and limitations

In the recently published White Paper 8, we describe a protocol for realizing cross-blockchain token transfers based on the cost-efficient blockchain relay that has been developed within TAST. With our approach, we achieved a significant cost reduction of up to 92% over traditional blockchain relays.

With the recently presented protocol, we were able to leverage blockchain relays to enable decentralized cross-blockchain token transfers as envisioned by TAST. However, the protocol from White Paper 8 suffers from two limitations:

  1. The protocol does not guarantee transfer finality. That is, the protocol does not ensure that tokens that are burned on the source blockchain are eventually recreated on the destination blockchain — tokens can get lost in transit.
  2. Even if transfer finality was guaranteed, the source blockchain currently would have no possibility to know when a transfer has actually been finalized on the destination blockchain. This is important in case certain actions need to take place on the source blockchain as a result of a successful transfer.

Presenting protocol extensions

To tackle these issues, White Paper 9 presents two extensions to the protocol. The first extension enables transfer finality. It remains fully decentralized by deploying a sophisticated incentive scheme. The second extension provides functionality to report back successful transfer finalizations to the source blockchain.

The preliminary assumption is that a cross-blockchain token transfer always includes a BURN transaction on the source blockchain and a CLAIM transaction on the destination blockchain. We identify the following requirements to ensure that this process happens in a decentralised way:

  1. Ownership: Only the rightful owner of tokens can initiate their transfer.
  2. No Claim Without Burn: Each CLAIM needs to reference a valid BURN.
  3. Double Spend Prevention: Each BURN can be claimed at most once.
  4. Decentralized Finality: Each burned token is eventually claimed on another blockchain.
  5. Transfer Confirmation: The source blockchain is eventually informed of the success of the transfer.

Conclusion and next steps

In this White Paper we describe two extensions that tackle limitations defined in the work before. First, we add an incentive structure encouraging any user to finalize token transfers in case the sender is indisposed to do so. Second, functionality for reporting transfer finalization back to the source blockchain is implemented. We also evaluate the extended protocol regarding the defined requirements, transfer cost and duration in a scientific publication which further contains detailed specifications of the described extensions. In the work at hand, we present a concise summary of the obtained results. The proof of concept implementation used for the evaluation is currently restricted to Ethereum-based blockchains. In future work, the approach will be extended to other blockchain platforms as well. Finally, we will explore blockchain interoperability solutions beyond cross-blockchain token transfers.

For more information, check out the ninth TAST Technical White Paper.

About Pantos

As the first multi-blockchain token system, Pantos aims to bring blockchain projects closer together, improve communication between developers, researchers and users, and set innovative standards for cross-chain token transfers.

The goal is to serve as a lighthouse project in an increasingly fragmented blockchain space. With multiple blockchains serving all kinds of different purposes, Pantos is seeking to allow these projects to talk to one another in a standardised way. This will speed up innovation by creating a link between blockchains which then can scale together.

To get the latest news on the progress of the Pantos project you can follow our official channels:

Pantos
Interoperability
Blockchain
Cross Chain Transfers
Cryptocurrency

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Pantos
Pantos

Written by Pantos

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The first multi-blockchain token system. Made with ♥ and care in Vienna by @bitpanda.

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